Follow Us

Can the D.C. Tech Community Unite?

Last week there was an article in the Post which highlighted the division of technology networking groups in the D.C. area. There was “a more formal event, with many silver-haired executives running their second or third technology company.” Then there was the D.C. bash that we helped put together.

The result was two divergent crowds. The reason for all of this? I would suggest that one of the reasons is that some have adopted the “social technology” and others haven’t. Many that read this blog read their RSS Feeds daily, find out about events on Facebook and are happy to jump on the latest micro-blogging platform.

The other group is still stuck in the ways they have learned over more than a decade and are perfectly fine reading the latest edition of their favorite email newsletter. Try telling somebody that receives 100 emails a day and has their Google Reader packed with over 1,000 unread items that they have another email newsletter to read. It just won’t happen.

So aside from what may appear to be technology snobbery, there is an opportunity to further what hasn’t been done already: connect these two technology groups. Currently, the attendees that have registered are largely part of the social media crowd but there are some unfamiliar names popping up and sure hope that continues.

So next week, Thursday July 17th, the first mixer of the NVTC crowd and the D.C. social media community will take place at Local 16 on U Street. I will be blasting out an email to the attendees of the past event in hopes that they attend and hopefully NVTC does the same. It will hopefully be an event to remember and maybe, we will finally see the barriers between the two groups disappear. I’ve definitely been hoping this would take place for a long time.